On loan to me from Wendy.

I've been on a sort of reading rut lately and so I was eternally grateful when my friend Wendy highly recommended this book to me.

I had absolutely no expectations from it and after reading the last sentence I found that I had developed a crush on the book. I know this sounds silly but every once and awhile I read a book that makes me want to hold it close to my chest and inhale the scent of it. I want to sleep with it under my pillow and I end up thinking about it all day. I'm a little crazy like that.

This book is quite simple in plot line: a middle-aged American suburbanite man ends up driving across the country with his sister's Guru. The circumstances leading up to this event are due to the sudden death of his parents, and his sister’s fear of flying. At the last minute his “new age” sister backs out of the road trip and convinces him to take her Guru instead to show him what America is.

The writting is flawless and it is a pleasure reading how this mainstream Roman Catholic man deals with the logic and faith of an older and very wise monk. And yet I walked away from it with many new thoughts in my head and a new appreciation for simple living.

All that being said the only downfall of this book was the ending for me. But I am very particular about endings of books. Especially if they are too predictable or too far from how the rest of the book is written. For me the latter is the case to some degree but overall I would highly recommend it.